As Much Light as It Will Take: On Poetic Language and Revelation

Neal McGowan

This
essay argues that poetic language provides a means of understanding the nature
of divine revelation by showing how poetry overcomes problems of human
communication through metaphor and excessive language. Through a discussion on
metaphor and a brief look at A. R. Ammons’s poem “The City Limits,” the author demonstrates
the ways poetry pushes language to its breaking point using excessive speech to
forward communication. The author then argues, using the language of call and
response developed by Jean-Louis Chrétien, that revelation functions in an analogous
manner—as an excess that emerges when a human response strains but ultimately
fails to equal the call of God. Finally, the author connects this definition of
revelation as excessive response to God’s unending call with the task of the
church in allowing a diversity of voices in theological expression and in
creating imaginative theological projects.